Software M&A Blog

Late last month, Twitter CFO Anthony Noto accidentally sent a public tweet that was apparently supposed to be a private message about an M&A deal—“I still think we should buy him. He is on your schedule for Dec 15 or 16 -- we will need to sell him. i have a plan[sic]”
So someone out there is... Click here to read more

​Fungus Corners is what my southern California cousins called my home, Seattle, long ago as a youth. What could ever happen in a place so remote, over 700 miles from the next major US city (sorry Portlandia!).
Everything cool happens in California, right?
We've grown up to be one of the most... Click here to read more

I recently had the pleasure of presenting at the Annual NASSCOM Product Conclave held in Bangalore, India during the last 3 days of October. This sold-out event attracted over 1500 attendees, more than 100 software startups and emerging companies and included morning-to-evening, multiple-track... Click here to read more

If you needed any more convincing that now is the right time to explore the sale of your company, take note of the news from the private equity community. Hellman and Friedman, a premier PE firm just raised $10.9 Billion for its newest fund. It didn’t take long either. They starting fund-raising... Click here to read more

Selling a software, Internet or IT company is a complex process with uncountable moving parts. It's easy to make a mistake along the way that can kill a deal--or at least hurt your value significantly. In fact, if you're a tech company owner or executive, you may be making some of those mistakes... Click here to read more

I wanted to follow up on Bruce's discussion of the current market situation from last week with a view from here on the other side of the Atlantic.
The M&A market in Europe has been especially healthy in 2014. A shift in investor sentiment has also led to the resurgence of the IPO market across... Click here to read more

In December of 2008, after a tumultuous stock market, Corum did a special holiday webcast "Worried About Your Company's Future? You Should Be!"
600 worried CEOs, owners and investors tuned in to hear us tell them they needed to cut now, and deep, in order to survive. The Fed wasn't sounding alarms... Click here to read more

I was recently a participant in the International Bar Association’s 2nd Biennial Silicon Valley conference in Santa Monica California, focused on worldwide trends in Venture Funding, Private Equity, and Exit Strategies. The well-attended event attracted transaction specialist lawyers from all over... Click here to read more

Visit almost any major to mid-sized US city, and you’ll see that the innovation community is a key driver of jobs, economic growth, and wealth creation. By guiding, mentoring, and funding the most promising of entrepreneurs, angel investors often fuel regional successes and are a critical... Click here to read more

I was invited to speak at GamesBeat, a conference organized by VentureBeat, in September in San Francisco. The theme was World Domination, and it was certainly present throughout the talks as Tencent, iDreamSky, and Nexon took the stage and spoke about their local markets in Asia and their turning... Click here to read more

Here at Corum, we're transactional. We've closed over 300 transactions. We're students of the market because the more we know, the more we can help our clients get deals done. And one thing the market has been telling us is that the world of buyers for technology companies is very different than it... Click here to read more

Let’s go way back, to Baron von Rothschild in France a couple of hundred years ago. He was quoted as saying, “I made my fortune by always selling too early.” Now let’s fast forward to the dot-com era. We sold two enterprise fax businesses in the space of about three months, took a third to market... Click here to read more

Many sellers are misinformed on this point. They think that buyers prefer that sellers avoid working with an M&A advisor. In fact, serious buyers prefer the opposite: that you have a skilled intermediary on your side. It almost seems counter-intuitive when you consider that my job is to get... Click here to read more

What if you receive a single, perhaps unsolicited, offer for your company? Should you take it? - i.e. Should your philosophy be a “Bird in the Hand”, or might you fall victim to this M&A myth? Here are some thoughts:
First, is this solo offer really the best market price you can get? We’ve... Click here to read more

An article hit my inbox last week on mastering the ten value drivers in selling your business. As usual, stable and predictable cash flow was in the pole position at number one, the top driver of business value. But since we deal only in technology, I was really surprised to see that growth hit the... Click here to read more

A common question we receive here at Corum is “What net revenue is needed to become interesting as an acquisition target?” or similarly, “I heard $10 million in net revenue is the minimum number you need to be acquired.” The truth is, although net revenue is an important factor in M&A, buyers... Click here to read more

As exclusive sell-side M&A advisors, we are sometimes retained after a seller has received an offer from a buyer. Even though we can invariably help the seller improve an existing offer, the greatest threat to the incumbent buyer is that we will bring in another offer at a higher value, or... Click here to read more